Today we’d like to introduce you to Don Wall.
Hi Don, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi, Don Wall here. Kimberly and I moved to Nashville from Dallas, TX in May 2022. We just got married in Steamboat Springs on August 4, 2025, honeymooned in Santa Fe and New Orleans. We are loving Nashville as a place to live. We recently moved into our own condo in Bellevue, our tree house in the woods. The Nashville songwriting community is amazing and supportive. My story began in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was born on April 2, 1953. Mom and Dad were both musical. Mom played piano and Dad sang. We used to sing in the car all the time, songs like “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain,” “Oh! Susanna,” “Down in the Valley,” “Red River Valley,” “Home on the Range,” plus all the Christmas songs.
My life changed when I was 10. President Kennedy was assassinated and then I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I immediately started banging on things and was playing drums and singing in a band at age 13. I played in rock and roll and blues bands in high school and college. I added country, when I moved to Texas in 1984. Professionally, I was a poet, writer, TV news producer, and on-air reporter. I had a lot of success, writing for major publications, producing at ABC News in New York, Dallas, and Washington, and reporting at WFAA-TV in Dallas. I was nominated for two national Emmys, won a national Edward R. Murrow Award, won a regional Emmy, and several first place AP, UPI, and Dallas Press Club awards. I started playing guitar at age 40, jammed with bluegrassers, formed a band, and began writing songs in Texas at age 56. I’ve been writing songs and performing them ever since.
This year, 2025, I have just released my first Nashville recording, Love, Texas. It’s on all the digital streaming services. I offer a CD and just got some vinyl copies, which are now available on my website, www.donwall.net. The record includes 11 songs, all written by Don Wall, except “Waylon and Me,” written by Kaysie P. Young, Mark Lynn Young, Eric Smith, and Don Wall. The songs reflect some of my experiences in Texas and are written in many of the musical styles I heard in Texas.
From the opening flourishes of Ross’s fiddle and Doyle’s lap steel, I want to put you, the listener, in Texas. “Cornbread” is the song that best describes my 40 years living there, a Massachusetts Yankee transplanted to Dallas/Fort Worth to work in the news business. When I say, “I spent the day with Willie Nelson,” I really mean it. I was a producer with ABC News and in 1984 we put Willie’s Fourth of July Picnic live on Nightline from Austin. I’ve been everywhere in Texas. I’ve seen the West Texas sunset in “Waylon and Me.” I’ve covered tornados, droughts, hail storms, floods, and hurricanes on the Texas gulf coast. “Fishin’ on the Guff” captures the gulf at its gentle best, sunshine, fishing, enjoying new love, hanging out with good friends, both Anglo and Mexican. Jeff’s accordion and Ross’s fiddle take us somewhere between Cajun and the late Flaco Jimẽnez of the Texas Tornados. I wanted to pay homage to different Texas musical styles. “Me and You” is Bob Wills and Western swing. “Spending Time” is a line dance in a Texas dancehall. “Hold Me Close” is a slow two step, one last spin around the dance floor for soon to be ex’s. “Texas to Tennessee” reflects the “valor and swagger” that Carl Sandburg wrote to describe Texas. “Marie” and “Slow Road” point to the Celtic and bluegrass influences that the Scots and the Irish brought from the old country down through the hills of Virginia and Tennessee to Texas. “Red, White and the Blues” is a folk blues song featuring Bryan’s plaintive cornet, about my friend who survived the Vietnam War but not the peace. “Love in a Sleeping Bag” is a duet inspired by my love affair while camping with Kimberly.
I think of this record as my musical postcard from Texas, with Love, Texas. I produced the record along with Bryan Cumming at Bryan’s Studio 23 in Nashville. Bryan is an acclaimed musician and producer, plays woodwinds, brass, and anything with strings. Among the groups he has played with are ShaNaNa and the WannaBeatles. We recruited some amazing musicians to play on the album, Ross Holmes, Jeff Taylor, Doyle Grisham, Carly Zimmerman, Al Steele, and Trevor Valentine. Ross plays fiddle and mandolin with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I met Ross when he was 9 years old, taking fiddle lessons while I was taking guitar lessons at Valerie’s Music Studio south of Fort Worth. Carly is an award-winning singer/songwriter we met when we first moved to Nashville. Jeff played piano and accordion with the Time Jumpers, currently plays with Riders in the Sky at the Grand Ole Opry. Doyle still plays pedal steel and dobro with the Coral Reefer Band. He played live and recorded with the late Jimmy Buffett going back to the 1970’s. I got to know Bryan, Jeff, and Doyle through Les Kerr, a Nashville stalwart, songwriter, artist, and bandleader of The Bayou Band, who has become our good friend and helped me so much with the music here in Nashville. Trevor Valentine is an English folk singer who became our friend in Nashville and invited us to join him and play English folk clubs in 2024. Trevor introduced me to Al Steele, his producer, who is a member of the British pop group, The Korgis. The three of us recorded “Waylon and Me” at Al’s Shabbey Road Studios in Caerphilly, Wales,UK.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I love where I am today, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. But, I took a beat down a time or two to get where I am. I had a head injury in a car accident when I was working as a TV reporter. The scars healed but my brain was messed up. I was prescribed medications for depression, anxiety, and sleeping issues. You might say the bottom fell out of my life. It took me a few years to get off the pills, and get back to being the positive person I’ve always been. Meeting Kimberly and traveling on this journey together makes all the difference.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At the heart of all my work is my writing. That makes sense. When I found out I was a good writer in college, I started writing poetry, which led to newspaper writing, which led to magazine and radio writing, which led to television and book writing. Songwriting came next, and as you might expect, I am a word person. What I didn’t know is that I’m a pretty good melody writer, too. When I was a child, I used to sit at my mother’s upright piano in the basement and pick out melodies with one finger. I could usually remember them and repeat them. As a journalist, I once had the opportunity to ask George Strait what was more important to a hit song, the melody or the lyrics. He thought about and said it was the melody. So that’s what I think. Lyrics can grab you and tell a story that evokes emotions, but a catchy melody will get stuck in your brain and replay over and over. Some people call it an ear worm. When people say I’ll be singing that one all day, they are thinking about the melody. The other thing I focus on is the beat. I’m a drummer, remember. Sometimes I call my songs “Stories with a Beat.”
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was an outgoing kid, played sports, music, got good grades. I always had the drive to excel. I liked winning but I wasn’t afraid to lose. My main interests were baseball, learning, reading, and music. In high school, I played 4 years of varsity baseball and became co-captain of the team. I also became the president of the student council. When I was about 5 years old, I followed the mailman around the block on my tricycle. Our parents let me and a friend take a city bus from our suburban home in Boylston, MA into the city of Worcester, MA by ourselves when we were 10 years old. I once got arrested for sleeping on the beach on Cape Cod.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.donwall.net
- Instagram: @donald.wall
- Facebook: @DonWall
- LinkedIn: @Don Wall
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/user/donwallproductions
